Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The second successful English colonial settlement in the New World, Henricus was opposite to the Native American village of Arrohateck. At the time, the First Anglo-Powhatan War was raging, and the Indian tribes of Virginia offered continuous resistance to colonial settlement, largely orchestrated by native leader Nemattanew — or as the colonists knew him, "Jack-of-the-Feather".
Painting of John Smith and colonists landing in Jamestown. On 4 May [O.S. 14 May] 1607, 105 to 108 English men and boys (surviving the voyage from England) established the Jamestown Settlement for the Virginia Company of London, on a slender peninsula on the bank of the James River. It became the first long-term English settlement in North America.
Henricus was envisioned as possible replacement capital for Jamestown and was to have the first college in Virginia. (The ill-fated Henricus was destroyed during the Indian massacre of 1622, during which a third of the colonists were killed.)
Nemattanew first appears in English colonial records in 1611, when George Percy mentioned "Munetute" as being sent by paramount chief Wahunsunacawh to lead resistance to the colonists' expansion in the upper James River region. This was when Henricus was founded, during the course of the First Anglo-Powhatan War.
The land was on the north bank of the James river where there was a proposed college at Henricus in the "Shire of Henricus", supported by the Church of England. An article describing the "College of Henricus" says: "The first university in America actually was chartered in 1618, and slated for construction on 10,000 riverfront acres in what is ...
(The ill-fated Henricus was destroyed during the Indian massacre of 1622). In addition to creating the settlement at Henricus, Dale also established the port town of Bermuda Hundred, as well as "Bermuda Cittie" in 1613, now part of Hopewell, Virginia. He began the excavation work at Dutch Gap, using methods he had learned while serving in Holland.
Dowse was born in England, but migrated to the American colonies, becoming one of the "ancient planters".. Brown states in his "First Republic in America," that, in 1619, "the City of Henricus included Henrico (Farrar's Island), extending thence on both sides of James River to the westward, the pale run by Dale between the said river and the Appomattox River being the line on the South Side."
The colonists, however, destroyed the Powhatans' cornfields, and the bowmen gave up the fight and retreated. A shortage of gunpowder in the colony delayed the colonists from going on marches in 1625 and 1626. The Indians seem not to have been aware of this shortage and were themselves desperately trying to regroup.